Looking for the silver lining

The natural world is an immense source of inspiration and metaphor. Watching the grey clouds moving ponderously across a leaden sky on this chilly late Autumn afternoon, it occurred to me that the sky could be a very interesting metaphor for our emotional state. The weather is constantly changing, just as our thoughts and emotions come and go across our mind. Like the weather, sometimes our mood can seem to be "set in" for the day - which is wonderful if we are feeling in a sunny disposition, but not so good if we are surrounded by our own personal cloud of gloom.

It is important to remember that we are not our emotions - they are not attached to us, just as the clouds are not attached to the sky. Happiness is a state of mind and, believe it or not, we do actually have a conscious control over our own state of mind; you can choose to be happy right now, in this moment - that is your decision. No person or event actually has the power to "make" us feel a particular way; we react to situations because of the way we perceive them - and in that moment there is always a choice of how we react - it is our choices that show who we truly are. Every cloud really does have a silver lining and it is up to us whether we choose to look for it.